 Fy roi, mae'n gweld â'r gwaith a chysylltu chi'n gwybod i chi adeiladu'r ddifu'r lleiwn i'r telefonau i'r cyffredinol, sydd yn ddefnyddio'r ddifu'r systemol fel'r ddiffunsu. Rwy'n gweld a thysg o ddifu'r ddifu'r ddifu'r ddifu'r ddiffunsgol a'r ddiffunsgol The next item of business is an evidence session with the Scottish Government as part of the committee's consideration of petition PE1533 by Geoff Adamson on behalf of Scotland Against Care Tax on abolition of non-residential social care changes for older and disabled people. Members have a note by the clerk and its submission. I should point out that the initial stage of the view of NHS Scotland was not sought on the basis that the questions identified initially would more properly matter for the cabinet secretary in the first instance. Following today's evidence session it may be that the committee will wish to follow up issues specifically with the NHS Scotland. So can I welcome cabinet secretary Shona Robison for health, wellbeing and sport, and her officials, David Forreum and Mike Liddle, for the integration and reshaping care division Scottish Government to the meeting. Can I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement after which we shall move to questions? Okay, thanks very much, convener. I certainly welcome the opportunity to speak to the committee today about this issue. I certainly recognise the concerns that have been raised by people facing a range of challenging disabilities and conditions, their carers and the organisations that work with them. I'm certainly determined that the Scottish Government will continue to work with our local authority partners and indeed our health partners to improve the consistency and fairness of the current approach to charging for non-residential care. I think it is important to consider charging as part of the wider social care system. We need to ensure that resources are in place so that we can have the quantity and quality of social care that people require and that any charges are affordable and reasonable. With that in mind, on 20 January, I announced a further £100 million investment over three years to increase social care capacity and to help to reduce the number of people waiting to be discharged from hospital. Charges for social care allow local authorities to recoup a small part of their expenditure on social care, but we need to ensure that charges that are necessary are fair and affordable. My predecessor, Alex Neil, and I have taken a close interest in the issue of charging for social care and determined that there should be a fair system for service users. That's why we are working in partnership with COSLA and have ensured, for example, that no-one under 65 and in the last six months of a terminal illness should be charged for the care that they receive at home. We will set that out in legislation if necessary. I am certainly happy to explore with the committee and others what more could be done. Indeed, we are in continuing discussions with COSLA about what further action can be taken to create a fairer care charging system. Thank you, cabinet secretary, for your open comments. Can I say that the petitioner, Jeff Adamson, is in the gallery today? In your letter to the committee concerning the petition, you said that you were sympathetic to the petition. However, much of your response was to ensure greater consistency across local authorities rather than abolishing care charges. Cabinet secretary, do you have a view on the principle of abolishing care charges? As I said in my opening remarks, we need to look at charging in the round. We certainly are in discussions with COSLA about what more can be done. We need to make sure that we have the capacity within social care, given that a lot of the debate at the moment is around how we prevent people being delayed in hospital and how we make sure that people are not admitted to hospital in the first place when they do not have to be. All that requires us to build capacity in the social care sector. That is part of the debate and the considerations that we need to give, because there are finite resources and we need to decide how best to deploy those finite resources with that in mind. Meanwhile, it is important that we have a bigger debate about that balance, because there are issues that need to be resolved. As I said in my opening remarks, we looked at the issue of people in the past six months of life. That is why COSLA is working at the moment on a new financial assessment to bring more continuity and consistency across local authority boundaries and why we are talking to COSLA about what more we can do to create a fairer charging system. I acknowledge that there are, in consistency, quite different systems from one local authority to the other. While we have that bigger debate about what is affordable and in the current context of having to look at the growth of social care and the importance of that, we make the current charging system fairer for those who are paying charges. That is the focus of the discussion that we are having with COSLA at the moment. Mr Dornes, I consider the variance in charging across the 32 local authorities. Has the Scottish Government made any assessment of how much it would cost to abolish care charges? We have, although there are some unknown quantities in that. We looked at the current income that was brought in from charges, which was around £50 million. Clearly, though there are unknown issues, for example, how much would that grow, potentially, if charges were to be removed? I guess that that is quite hard to estimate completely, but I think that we would probably acknowledge that there would be a growth in demand and therefore a growth in costs. If we were to do that, although £50 million in the bigger picture of things might not seem like a huge amount, if that £50 million was spent on that, then that is £50 million that is not being spent on growing capacity. You could equate that to £100 million that could be put into growing social care capacity. Those are the debates and dilemmas that we have in the current financial climate. We have to make difficult decisions about whether, given the challenges of the need to grow social care, the challenges of delayed discharge, the challenges of a growing ageing population, where is the best place to invest those finite resources? Those are discussions that we are having with local government and with the NHS as well. They are not easy to resolve. It is important that, where charges are levied, they are fairer than they are at the moment. I am keen to progress at that, but we do have some very challenging choices to make around investment in social care. Otherwise, we are going to continue to face some of the challenges of not being able to keep people out of hospital and not being able to get them out of hospital as quickly as they need to be and to make sure that there is adequate care provision there for people who need it. The issue in the petition is about the charging regimes that currently exist and the unfairness of the charging regime, and, in particular, the inconsistency across local authority areas in terms of the charges that are made. I view that as one whereby you have made reference in a couple of occasions, cabinet secretary, to the delayed discharges. I look at health boards. Health board boundaries are not coterminous with local authority boundaries. Potentially, because of the inconsistency that exist across local authorities, I take my own area, for example, in Lanarkshire health board. It covers three or four different local authorities. Three or four local authorities have different care charging systems. Could you not see that there has been a potential for some individuals who are pursuing a delayed discharge because they cannot afford the charging regime that applies in their local authority while in other areas there may be greater outscope for the discharge because the care system does not charge as much? You make a fair point. Part of the complexity of delayed discharge is that some local authorities have greater social care capacity, some are able to recruit staff easier than others, some have more provision of care homes, some have greater provision of home care services, some have more intermediate care beds, so I think that each area has some different challenges to another. That may be a part of it, but I think that there are probably other issues going on there as well that lead to some of the differences and particular challenges of delayed discharge being worse in one area than another. Having said that and I have made this very clear, delayed discharge is a problem throughout the system at the moment and that is something that we are absolutely focused on resolving. However, your point about inconsistencies is a fair one, and that is why COSLA has been working on this new financial assessment framework so that what is taken into account in terms of income and things that are disregarded, that there is more consistency around that. However, as I said in my opening remarks, we are in discussions with COSLA about what more can be done. There are issues around when, at what income level, people start to pay charges. For example, that is one area in terms of tackling inequalities, which is an area that has some importance. There is the issue, I guess, of people with complex needs. I suppose to summarise that it is work in progress the discussions that we are having with COSLA. I am sure that the committee will understand that those are difficult and challenging and complex discussions. We need to make sure that, if we do one thing, it does not have a knock-on effect on something else and that we look at that in the round about what more could we do to create a system that is fairer and addresses some of the inequalities that are there within the charging system at the moment and brings more of a consistency to address some of the issues that you are very much raising. Of course, with integration coming the 1st of April, again, those issues of consistency have even more importance. You can be assured that we are absolutely in the middle of discussions with COSLA about what more we can do to help to move that forward in a positive way. Cabinet Secretary, I accept your response. However, the issue is about the lengthy time that it is taking us to get to our conclusion. The working group has been in existence for three years. The COSLA's response in the last paragraph indicates that it will be working over the next year on a number of issues. Do you, Cabinet Secretary, have a timescale in your mind about how you would like to see all those issues being wrapped up so that we get some consistency, but we get some co-ordination in terms of the service delivery for people who require those care services? I note in amongst the COSLA response one of the issues is not just about household incomes, but about taking on board partners' income as well, which I think may be a worrying sign for some individual households. We have seen in the past that, in other areas, where partners' incomes have been included, you end up getting separations, divorces or whatever, because people then feel that they are being financially undermined because of the care charges that are applied and the disproportionate charges on someone who may be living in that household. I can understand the committee's frustration at the length of time that some of those things take. I suppose that it is a reflection of the complexity of the issue. A couple of things that have happened during that time referred to earlier have been progressed on the issue of the charging for those under 65 with the terminal illness. It is quite right that that was resolved and that it was not fair that someone was being charged for end-of-life care. The other issue that is about to be finalised is the new financial assessment framework, which will help with some of the issues about what one local authority disregards and what another disregards. It is incremental steps of progress rather than perhaps something that is a bit quicker. However, in terms of time frame going forward, as I said, we are in some very detailed discussions with COSLA at the moment about what more can be done. Obviously, we would want to bring those to a conclusion as quickly as possible, but we are keen to try to get that right because it is an issue that keeps surfacing. We want to try to do more around fairer charging and get something that is going to be sustainable and see us into the long term rather than coming back and revisiting the issue time and time again as it has done over the past. I hope that you will forgive us for taking that bit more time. However, as I said, we are in detailed discussions with COSLA at the moment about what more can be done. As soon as those discussions are reaching any conclusion, I would be more than happy to come back to the committee with that detailed information. Cabinet Secretary, you indicated discussions with COSLA coming to a conclusion. As I asked earlier, do you have any timescale in mind? I know that the incremental steps have been taken, but for many individuals and households out there, they want an answer to the questions that are being raised about the charging regimes that apply sooner than later. I would be interested whether or not you have a timescale that you and your department are working towards to try to get a conclusion to that issue. I guess that it is always as soon as possible, but if I put a time frame on it and then that time frame slipped because we had not reached conclusions in those discussions, I am not sure how helpful that would be. I certainly want to try to bring those discussions to agreement and conclusion as quickly as we can. However, as I say, I would be more than happy to make sure that the committee gets early notification of that once we are in a position to do so. You are aware, cabinet secretary, that under the 2002 legislation the Scottish Government could set charges if they so wished, if they felt that there was not getting that support from COSLA members. Has that been part of the deliberations and discussion? I am not talking about with COSLA, but within the department and yourself. COSLA and ourselves are well aware of that. We have said in relation to the six months end of life care and the fact that councils should not be charging for that if required we would enact the 2002 legislation. We are all aware of the power that we have there, but we are trying to take that forward in the spirit of partnership. We have got the new integrated partnerships starting on 1 April. We all recognise that resources are challenging and we need to make sure that where we spend the money is going to have the biggest impact and the biggest help to make sure that social care delivers in the way that we need it to deliver. We need to have caution around what decisions we make. That has to be done in consultation and negotiation rather than any other way, but we are aware of that. I noticed in some of the evidence that, with regard to the income that has been generated from social care services, a lot of it has not been put back into the service. Have you any comment to make on that? For my discussions with local government, I think that I would, to be fair to councils, quite often spend their social work budgets. I do not think that there is a case of them not spending the resources that they have on social care. I think that the opposite, actually. I think that councils are, in the main, doing what they can to meet those increasing demands. I guess that one of the challenges is about how we make better use of our collective resources, which is why integration is so important, because it is the benefits of making sure that those integrated teams that they are working closer together will make that social care spend have more impact than it currently has at the moment. I do not get the sense that local authorities are holding money back in the social care arena. That is certainly not my impression from the evidence that we have. From the analysis that we have done within the Scottish Government on looking at what the actual costs of collections of the charges are, we think that it is likely to be about 15 per cent of the income that is generated from charging that would be releasable, would be the actual cost of administering those charges. It is probably a very small figure compared to, I think, probably about half of what is in the Scotland Against the Care tax evidence that we think is likely to be the actual figure. I understood your question, convener, to be about whether the income that councils get from charging, whether that was going back out on services. We have no information to suggest otherwise when you look at what councils are spending on social care. We do not get the impression that they are holding money back from social care. In fact, the discussions that we have had with specific partnerships over winter, where there have been particularly heightened issues of delayed discharge, local authorities have been pretty upfront about coming up with additional resources in that tripartite arrangement where we were putting money in, health boards were putting money in and councils were putting money in as well. I do not get a sense that they are holding any money back. We have had a few changes in the committee since the petitioners presented this petition. I wonder if I could just give voice to the sentiment that underpinned part of what they were trying to say to us. That was given that the power exists under the act. They are concerned that although it seemed the sensible thing to do to try and get a sensible negotiated arrangement, it has taken a considerable amount of time and nothing really as they see it has been forthcoming of substance, although I take note of just what you have said to us and the evidence that you have submitted. I think that you are right to seek to get the voluntary agreement. Is there any justification to their sense that there has been a lack of rigor within COSLA in pursuing this issue over the timescale? I think that their feeling was that not an awful lot had been happening and that perhaps, given that you ultimately had a power, the Government might have been encouraging a little bit more actively some sort of resolution of the issue. I wonder if you could respond to their suspicion of that kind of lack of initiative and drive? I think that they have made some progress. Obviously, I understand the frustrations of people who would want to see faster progress on that. I am sure that that is the case. However, they have made some progress. Trying to get 32 local authorities to agree to a new financial assessment framework in itself is something that has taken a bit of time because you are talking about what should be disregarded, what should not be disregarded and trying to bring continuity to 32 local authorities around that is not without its challenges. To be fair to COSLA as well, in the midst of them looking at that issue and fairer charging, they have also been looking at the whole issue of integration. We have been working on the national indicators to agree what the £100 million for delayed discharge is going to deliver in terms of integrated partnerships, what they are going to deliver in terms of those national indicators of the 72-hour discharge standard, keeping people out of hospital, getting people... That is a huge agenda. The same people within COSLA who have been working on all of that have also been looking at the fairer charging issue. To be fair to them, they have had a lot on their plate around the whole agenda and have been trying to keep all those balls in the air and make progress on all of them. Whereas I can understand the frustration that people might feel that that pace has been too slow, a lot of those issues are very complex and have required us to have very detailed discussions around each aspect of them. Perhaps that is by way of explanation why it has been a bit slower than people would have liked. Is consistency ultimately achievable in their evidence, such that the geography of the council area is such that it will always be difficult to achieve a degree of consistency that some might regard as reasonable depending on how easily they are able to access services elsewhere? Is that an insurmountable obstacle or do you believe that that concern that they have about the breadth of the council area that they have to represent is something that could be overcome? I think that there will always be differences around perhaps around the edges. If you look at the requirement for travel, if you look at the requirement, a whole host of challenges of delivering services and being able to access services in a remote and rural area is a different challenge from that in an urban environment. However, where the financial assessment framework is helpful is that some things are about what is disregarded as income in one local authority. Why is it not disregarded in another? If you move from one local authority to another, the differences of what is disregarded in your financial assessment are varied, and that is where COSLA had accepted that that variation was too large. If we can get those big inconsistencies marshaled into a better place of more consistency on things like what is disregarded and not disregarded, the differences are more about the things like rurality and the nature of the local authority area rather than a decision about what is disregarded on someone's income and not disregarded. We will get to a better place through the financial assessment framework. Whether that eradicates every difference, it probably won't, but it will be a much fairer financial assessment that we have at the moment. Obviously, we will want to look at that closely as it emerges from approval through COSLA's structures. There has been a specific concern raised by Inclusion Scotland and a more general caveat and warning that has been put forward by the Quality and Human Rights Commission regarding compliability with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities in a particular article 19. Can you tell us whether the Scottish Government thinks that you are compliant and what work is done to ensure that you are compliant? We have looked at the evidence provided to the committee on that today. We do not consider that the general charging framework is incompatible with the acts and conventions that are highlighted. Obviously, we would keep that under review in the light of any further evidence that comes forward. Obviously, we also have to make sure that anything is consistent with the equality legislation and we have done that. However, that does not mean that there are no improvements that can be made on the fairness. It may not be incompatible with all of those, whether it is the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities or whatever, but that does not mean that there is no scope to improve the fairness of it. That is where we are focusing our attention at the moment. You have said that, under the equality impact assessments, you would have taken the same view that you have had a look at that. The equality act itself has, as you are probably aware, a general duty and a specific duty on local authorities, both of which are relevant to the development of charging policies. It requires you to look at a policy that looks to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation, advance the quality of opportunity, promote good relations between persons who share a relevant, protected, characteristic and persons who do not share it. The COSLA's charging guidance states that, as a result of the general duty, local authorities must consider how to promote equality and ensure that no group are put at a disadvantage by their charging policy and that local authorities should carry out equality impact assessments on their non-residential care charging policy to make sure that there is not a disproportionate impact on people with a protected characteristic. They have to do all that. That is more thinking about if the policy was fairer to one section of the community rather than another in terms of one group over another. Whether people feel that the existing charging policies are fair or not, I do not think that they penalise necessarily one group over another. It is just that perhaps one local authority has a different charging policy than another local authority, rather than differing policy within that local authority, if you see what I mean. However, having said all of that, I think that what I have said throughout this evident session is that that does not mean that there cannot be more done to make it fairer. As one thing being requirements under the law, it is quite another thing about whether or not something can be fairer. I think that that is the territory that we are on. Can I conclude on that issue of fairness? Ian Hood, the Scotland coordinator of the learning disability allowance, I thought made a very forceful and reasoned contribution to our discussion in relation to what has changed in recent times. That is that the income tax allowance has increased significantly, whereas councils were able to charge at 6,000 or 8,000 for over 65-year-olds and that that level used to be consistent with the income tax threshold. Income tax threshold is now 10,000 and is set to go higher. There are individuals who are no longer regarded as being subject to income tax, but because the threshold for charging has not increased, they are regarded as being capable of meeting charging costs. On route to abolition as a principle, which I think that we touched on earlier, whether that issue of fairness is rather exposed by that discrepancy, which has arisen over the period even that this review has been under way, and whether that might not be a route at least to try and alleviate those who are least able to afford the charging? Those are some of the discussions that we are having with COSLA around looking at the issue of inequalities and those who are on the lower incomes and how we could do more about making it fairer from that perspective. You will forgive me for not getting into too much of the detail, but I think that there is a recognition that those who are on the lowest incomes is an area that we probably need to do more about. I will take comfort from that. Any further questions? There are no further questions. Will the committee agree that we reflect on the evidence heard and consider a paper by the clerk at the next meeting before deciding what action to take? Thank you, cabinet secretary, for attending and I now allow you to go. Okay, thanks very much. Could we suspend for a couple of minutes? I believe that there are a number of petitioners from the mesh implant waiting to come in, so suspend for a couple of minutes. Moving on, colleagues, the agenda item number two is consideration of new petitions. The next item of business is consideration of one new petition. The new petition is PE1546 by John Croson on collecting poll tax ar ears. Members have a note by the clerk and the petitioner. The petitioner has indicated that he no longer wishes to proceed with his petition. On that basis, I will invite members to agree that the petition should be closed. The next item of business is consideration of seven current petitions. The first two petitions were taken together, and that is PE1098 by Lyn Merrifield on behalf of King's Seat Community Council and PE1223 by Ron Beattie on school bus safety. Members have a note by the clerk and the submissions. In relation to PE1098, the committee agreed to defer consideration of the petition and seek an update from the Scottish Government in 2015. That will be requested and available for the committee's next consideration. I invite contributions from members. As no contributions, could I ask the committee if they agreed to write to Transport Scotland requesting that it take account of the petitioner's most recent submissions, highlighting breaches of Transport Scotland's school bus safety guidelines and to defer further consideration until the evaluation report is available in late summer, and to take any other action that the committee considers appropriate. The next petition is PE1493 by Peter John Gordon on the Sunshine Act for Scotland. Members have a note by the clerk. Two submissions were received after papers went out. There is also a further email from the petitioner, so you might like to say that it is unhelpful for submissions to be received after papers have been issued, and that the committee gives everyone that writes to sufficient time to respond. In the case of the Scottish Government, the committee expects in future that the responses are received in good time. Can I invite any contributions from the members? Thank you, convener. Just to press on record my disappointment that the Scottish Government has not responded to date, and your suggestion that notification be given to the Government that we do expect timely responses should be sent. The petitioner has submitted further information, which I think should be passed on to the Scottish Government, because in its response it alluded to the fact that the petitioner had not provided additional information, so it might be useful to forward on the latest correspondence that we have had from the petitioner and ask the Scottish Government to respond to the issues raised within that as well. Clearly, the Scottish Government is saying that it is looking for something that can be brought in that is fit for 2015 and beyond. That is what the petitioner is looking for, so I think that they can concur on that. However, the difficulty is trying to get the appropriate action taken by the Scottish Government to ensure that the petition is meaningfully considered by the Scottish Government and, in particular, by health boards. I think that it is fine. The delay was certainly delivered by the Government. It does seem to me to know that there is a willingness to look at this. It is rather complex given that you are bringing together how various health boards are operating, and it seems to me that, by all means, we should be passing on the information that has come to us from the petitioner to the Government, but we are going to give them some opportunity to bring together and focus what work it is that is on-going and what they are actually going to deliver. I do not think that that can be done quickly, because it is quite complex, given its interaction with other activities, both within the NHS and elsewhere, but pushing them to try and either keep us abreast of matters or indicate, perhaps, a clearer timetable of what action is taking place. Can I say I am delighted to agree with Mr MacAskill? Just slightly through a discord note on this. According to the information that we have, there was guidance issued in 2003 to health boards to establish registers. Now in 2015, and clearly the petitioner has highlighted that a number of health boards don't have a register in place and have no intention, according to the petitioner, of putting a register in place. If we are looking at 12 years down the road that health boards have not taken on seriously the guidance issued in 2003, it is incumbent on the Scottish Government to ask why they have not taken on board the guidance issued in 2003 and why action has not been taken before now to address the issues raised. As part of the letter received by the Scottish Government, the response refers to that we have not had any issues raised by patients or family members. I think that what we have got before us is a petition that is clearly raising issues and should be addressed accordingly by the Scottish Government. If it takes 15 years for guidance to be refreshed and reviewed and implemented then, I think that 15 years is too long. Any other questions? I could ask the committee then that we should write to the Scottish Government, obviously, on welcoming the announcement that it will conduct a wider consultation on the issue and seeking a firm timetable for this work. Can we also agree that in doing so, the Scottish Government's view on the effect, the forthcoming EFPIA code on transfers of value of pharmaceutical companies to healthcare, professional healthcare organisations will have on what the petition seeks? I also could be taking more of the points that Mr Wilson has made. Moving on to petition PE1521 by George Ecton and Jane O'Donnell on no more phase 3 in the Scottish Parliament. Members have a note by the clerk and the submissions. I would like to bring to the members' attention that I have been recently appointed to the SPCB and I am on record in saying that I support the no more phase 3 campaign. Can I invite any contributions from members? I am minded to move that we close the petition on the basis that we have actually fulfilled what was asked for us within the petition, which is not actually the issue itself. The issue was for the matter to be drawn to the Scottish Parliament, which we have done. I suppose we could, if we wished, make a further representation to the SPCB, but our responsibility under the petition was not to ultimately resolve the issue itself, but to highlight the issue within the Scottish Parliament, which I believe has now been successfully done. I am not quite sure what the next step for this committee would be in taking the petition forward. Any other comments? I certainly support the no more phase 3 campaign and it did look a week or so that it had been successful, but that does not seem to have been the case with regard to their overall objective. However, the committee has, as Jackson Carlaw says, done what it has been asked to do. I think that we might be straining to dangerous territory if we are deciding whether or not a particular publication is for sale within the Parliament buildings. I think that that is a decision that should be left to the SPCB. Would you like to refer the petition back to the SPCB or do you want to close it? My own view is that we have written to the SPCB and my understanding is that they have discussed it. My view would be that we should close the petition, I think. It does not mean that I am any reflection on the issue of substance, but I think that we have taken the petition to its logical conclusion. Members agree with closing the petition? The next petition is PE1525, the Catherine Fraser on the Access of Justice. Members have been awped by the clerk, paper 8 refers, and a letter from the convener of the Justice Committee. Can I invite contributions from the members? A lot of work is on going at the Scottish legal aid board and the Scottish Government about how you protect the integrity of a legal aid system that is under financial pressures. I can understand the desire for actions by individuals equally since time immemorial and the establishment of legal aid to avoid a growth of defamation cases. There has been no public policy interest. It would seem to me that all we could do is write to them, because I think that we are in a state of fluidity as legal aid changes and tries to come to terms with court changes and legislative changes to ask whether there is any willingness to change the current public view, but it is very difficult at the present moment for them to bring it in on its own without a wider review of legal aid. The next petition is PE1530 by Spencer Fuldes on behalf of the Scottish Secular Society on guidance on how creationism is presented in schools. Members have a note by the clerk and the submissions. Can I invite members for any comment? The committee has expressed a willingness within Parliament to review, and it has already taken a particular view on this. It would seem to me if that committee is willing to look at it, we should send it to them. I think that might be what we end up doing. I have read many of the submissions that we have received. I have tremendous sympathy with that, characterising creationism as supreme bilge. I think that the issue thereafter is whether or not it should be taught in school. The view of the Scottish Government and of the EIS and the SLS is that they do not believe prohibition would be the right way forward. My own view when we interrogated the petitioners was that, to my mind, anything should be subject to the light of day and that I do not believe that when these issues are raised that individuals and also their families who, after all, parents of a role in all of this do not bring out the truth in people's minds as to whether or not they regard creationism as science, which seems to me to be unlikely. The Scottish Government has said that it did not see merit in banning it. Although I can see we might therefore refer it to the education committee, I do not know that the education committee is going to be able to do anything other than write to all the very same people to whom we have written to receive the very same replies back. Now, if the committee feels that that would be a useful thing for us to do next, then fine, but I am not actually sure that we haven't had a fairly comprehensive and forceful response from the Scottish Government and from the teaching unions and professional bodies, none of whom believe that a formal prohibition in law would be the right way forward. The issue and I may be corrected on this, but the EIS, the school leader Scotland, who was challenged, must be said by a headteacher who wrote in an individual capacity, Alec Wood, who a number of us around this table will know, and others indicated that there was professional safeguards built in. However, the difficulty is, as I understand it, and the problem that we encountered in particular schools that were highlighted when this petition was presented to us, was that there are no such professional safeguards in place for classroom assistance or others that come into the educational settings outwith the teaching staff. I think that the issue for us is quite clear that, although we are not saying that people should be stopped from coming into schools in particular circumstances to present their case, the issue for us is whether or not it was appropriate in the circumstances that happened and highlighted the petition for those situations to have actually arisen. I do think that it would be worthwhile to put that on to the education committee, because I think that there are a number of issues that have been raised, particularly in light of some of the submissions that we received, which have highlighted that there are constraints within the English and Welsh education system, but we do not seem to have any constraints on what is taught in the Scottish education system. It might be useful if the education committee is prepared to look at those issues and how the Scottish system compares with those and other jurisdictions, particularly in light of the response that we received from the Scottish Government. Angus Ewing Thank you, convener. Having read the submissions, I think that one of the most salient point was raised by the Free Church of Scotland, which stated that politicians seeking to enforce their doctrines through the state education system is the mark of an authoritarian, not a democratic state. They went on to say that the petitioners are demanding that children be told what to think. The Free Church of Scotland believes that children should be taught how to think, and we believe that, in a mature democracy, skeptical questioning and alternative points of view should be encouraged rather than banned. From the responses that we have received overall, there is clearly no appetite for the Government to interfere in this issue. However, as John Willsons just stated, there may be a need for further safeguards, so I would be content to refer the petition to the Education and Culture Committee. John Willsons Is that not a call for us, as this committee, having got to that point to write ourselves to the Scottish Government again, drawing the point on classroom assistance and others that Mr Willsons has identified, to see whether the Government believes that they have taken that into account in the response that they gave us previously? I am just not quite sure why we are passing this on when I do not know that, if we feel there is an issue that we would still like further clarification on, our normal course of action would be to seek that clarification ourselves. John Willsons Can we not be happy for the committee to explore the issue further, if that is the will of all the committee members, and then possibly look at referring it to Education and Culture Committee, if need be? John Willsons I mean, as I was persuaded by Jackson's initial point, because it did seem to me that, if it is at the end of the road, it is really a matter for the Education and Learning Committee to decide whether they want to go anywhere further. They might very well decide not to do anything with it. I would be hesitant for us to do anything more other than either remit it there. If they say that they do not want it, I think that we have done as much as we can to focus it and got some clarity on it, and it is for them to decide if they wish to pick it up and run. David Willsons I would be happy to refer it to Education and Culture Committee. John Willsons I would tend to agree with Mr MacAskill to that, perhaps, but that is a first for me to Jackson. I would refer it to the Education and Culture Committee, and then I think it is up to that committee to decide what it should do with it. David Willsons The next petition is PE1534 by Claire Simmons on behalf of Planning Democracy on Equal Rights of Appeal in the Planning System. Members have a note by the clerk and the submissions. I invite any contributions from members. The Government has made its position quite clear in terms of not seeking any rush to further legislation that has satisfied how matters are bedding down. As with the last petition, if the local government and regeneration committee wish to go somewhere with it, that is a matter for them. It almost seems to me that we have explored the issue as best we can and got some clarity. Going back to the Government, I do not think that we would necessarily take us anywhere further than where we are at the moment. John Willsons Yes, thanks, convener. I would agree with Mr MacAskill. Given that the petitioners have requested that the petition be referred to the local government and regeneration committee, we should accept that request and refer it. David Willsons I beg to support that, convener. John Willsons I beg to support that, convener. David Willsons Could we maybe, well, okay, then we agreed then that we refer us to the local government committee? John Willsons Agreed. David Willsons The next petition is PE1517 on polypropylene mesh medical devices. I welcome Neil Findlay and John Scott to this part of the meeting. As members are aware, due to the weather in New York area, Adam Slater is unable to appear by video conference today. I know that has come as a disappointment to many of the petitioners here today. Another show of contact to me is also here in the gallery. We have a note by the clerk and two submissions. Could I suggest that we reschedule the evidence session with Mr Slater and could I ask what are the views of the members on that point? David Willsons I am happy to support that. John Willsons Right. Is there any comments, Mr Findlay? David Willsons Just in relation to how this proceeds, can you wonder if you or whether the committee has come here at any conclusions as to how this proceeds before I make any comment how we take this further? I do have a point which would lead us to that stage, but I have to say that, obviously, as a committee, we were appalled by the evidence that we heard and, I think, as a committee, we were enormously encouraged by the action of the Cabinet Secretary in suspending or calling for a suspension. I think that we have been somewhat disturbed that this has nonetheless proceeded in a number of places. I have to say that, underneath all of this, I am now increasingly concerned by the drift of travel in the various reviews that are taking place to which we have previously referred, particularly the review that is being conducted by the Medicines and Healthcare Product Regulatory Agency, which, it seems to me, is moving towards recommending that the benefits outweigh the risks in terms of proceeding with mesh implants and are also notwithstanding that, saying that they have come to that conclusion despite the fact that there is evidence of underreporting, and there are concerns that the MHRA is not aware of all women who have experienced problems. This seems to me to potentially be quite a dramatic obstacle to what many of us thought was progress. I do not know whether it is competent, convener. I am not actually sure. Are we able to invite the MHRA to give evidence to this committee? As part of our process, we really ought to, when they get to the point of concluding their review, which I think is in March, we really ought to be seeking to take evidence ourselves from them because I am concerned that their report may give considerable force to the direction of travel of Governments, and I mean beyond our own shores, potentially, despite the fact that there is a very considerable concern on our part that the rather glib assessment of the benefit outweighs the risk seriously fails to represent the very considerable concerns that we have heard from many of the people who have given evidence to us. I think that we could see what we thought was tremendous progress going into reverse. We have got a responsibility to take evidence and to pursue that issue. Thereafter, I think that it may well be that this is an issue that we would like to open to wider debate still on the floor of the Parliament when we have an opportunity so to do. Could I say a number of things? I think that it is very disappointing that Mr Slater cannot give his evidence, and that is perfectly understandable given the weather conditions that we see in the US at the moment. Since the cabinet secretary announced his alleged suspension in mesh, we know that this is still being fitted inside the bodies of women in Scotland, but it is now called a clinical trial. Since then, we have witnessed multimillion-pound compensation claims being paid out to several people with thousands more sitting in the pipeline. We have a whole range of other issues related to the on-going scandal about the whole ethics of how medical trials work, about the involvement of professionals in those trials, about the people who sit on those review bodies. There is a whole range of issues in here, a very tangled web that we have to unravel now. I think that if we are going to get all of this out in the open, it must come, then it is up to this Parliament to do that. Whether that is through this committee having an inquiry, I do not know if it is within the remit of this committee, I have never sat on it, I do not know, or that we ask the health committee to have such an inquiry, or whether the committee can bring a committee debate to the floor of Parliament, something has to happen to allow us to debate all of the very complex issues that relate to this case. Mr Slater's analogy that he gave in the Sunday Mail at the weekend was a very powerful one in which he said that politicians would not allow a car on the road if one in 10 crashed and injured people. For nine out of 10 people driving those cars, the benefit outweighs the risk. For one out of 10, crashing that car could end their life or dramatically change their life. Are we saying that we are going to allow that to continue to happen in Scotland when we know what has happened across the US and across the world? My appeal to you would be to say that I am quite happy to come back and I am very keen to hear Mr Slater's session, but that the committee makes some sort of decision very soon as to how it wants to proceed with us and bring us to the floor of Parliament or have a more in-depth inquiry, because every day that we delay, the potential is that another woman's life is ruined. Mr Scott. Thank you very much, convener. I identify myself with the foregoing remarks by colleagues. I, too, am disappointed that Mr Slater cannot give evidence today, but for obviously entirely understandable reasons. I am concerned about the different approach by different health boards to this issue. I am concerned given the precedent that is being set in America about the financial liabilities that may be being incurred by individual health boards in terms of compensatory payments being required at some subsequent date. Ultimately, that one would come back on to the Scottish Government. I am disappointed that the MHRA may not be aware of all the risks or problems, apparently almost by their own admission. What is the point of a body if they admit that they are not aware of all the risks? I therefore think that it is absolutely right that the issues should be invited in front of this committee to explain themselves. Mr Finlay draws the analogy of one-in-ten cars being defective. I do not think that that is an acceptable standard, certainly in transport, and I cannot see why it is an acceptable standard in health matters and particularly mesh implants. I would support the view that this must be investigated much more fully than it appears to have been. If this Parliament is taking the lead in a worldwide sense in that regard, then all power takes elbow. Any other contributions from members? Well, could I say that, as I said from the offset, we should reschedule an evidence session with Mr Slater as soon as possible? With regard to an invitation to the MHRA, I think that we should do that, but my understanding of being advised that we cannot compel them to attend, but we will endeavour to do that. With regard to whether we should perhaps have an inquiry, I would have thought that rather than, I do not know how the process would work for us, but rather an inquiry could very well maybe be quicker for a chamber debate to take place in that issue. The action that I think that I can do from this committee is one that we can very quickly get in touch with Mr Slater and second will contact the MHRA and then that should be the end of our evidence in that respect, which will allow us then to have that report ready for where we can then send it to, but I think that with regard to a chamber debate, if that could be fulfilled, rather an inquiry might be a quicker way forward. Colleagues at the Scottish Government have an independent review, which is taking account of the MHRA inquiry under the chairmanship of Dr Leslie Wilkie, which will make its own recommendations based on the MHRA review. I would have thought that if in fact they do, then as well as the MHRA, we might want to invite the chair of the independent review group also to give evidence so that we can understand their thinking based on what they have heard as well. I support Jackson Carlaw that we basically, as well as having the evidence from Mr Slater, the MHRA in front of us and the chair of the independent review body, may also be useful to bring back the Cabinet Secretary for Health, because the initial discussion that we had with the previous cabinet secretary, the committee was under the impression that all mesh implant operations had been suspended pending the inquiry. Clearly that did not happen, and some health boards are using the issue of clinical trials as a way around the suspension. It would be useful before we have the chamber debate convener to hear the evidence from the Scottish Government officials, as well as the cabinet secretary, MHRA, as well as Mr Slater. I think that there are still issues that we need to examine, because what I would not want us to do as a committee is to ask for a chamber to debate without all the facts being before us and the results of MHRA's evidence-seeking inquiry. I think that there are some concerns that have been raised in terms of the Department of Health response to the committee. Clearly that is not doing a full troll of all those who have had mesh implant operations to find out whether or not there have been benefits. No, Mr Finlay made an analogy of the one in ten, but clearly, as we have already heard in this committee, a number of the patients are only now coming forward because the campaign that has been developed and the discussions that have taken place in this committee. It is incumbent on us to make sure that MHRA is doing as full and inquiry as possible before it presents evidence, and, likewise, the independent inquiry that is set up by the Scottish Government does the same to ensure that we reflect the situation that is out there and not what is hypothetical or suspected to be. We know from the evidence that we have received so far, convener, that not all medical staff have reported where there have been complications and some patients have not been aware who to report the complications to. We really need to make sure that any inquiry that is carried out is a full inquiry and takes on board the views and experiences of all those patients that have underwent those operations. Two things on that. Time is off the essence here, because the more we delay, the more potential there are for more people to be, in my view, victims of this growing scandal. If we are going to get people in to do evidence sessions, I can, having not spoken to the petitioners today, but I can almost guarantee that the same number of people will be here each time there is an evidence session on this issue. Those are probably the most determined and diligent campaigners that have come across in a long time. Therefore, given the pain and suffering that many of those people have and that there is a challenge to them being here, can I make an appeal that, if there is to be sessions, it is one session that all of the people who are invited attend, rather than us, to have three or four sessions where people who find it very difficult to travel and walk have to come here time and time again? As a commission gave evidence at the end of last year to the European Commission, the European Commission have a report coming out earlier this month that might be worth asking them to give us evidence as well. I invite you to. Can I, any further questions? Can I maybe sum up then? Probably four or five action points. One, again, is that we very quickly get in touch with Mr Slater to give that evidence. Two, we invite the MHRA and the chairman, chief executive, along. Three, we write to the new health secretary, inviting him back for an update. Four, we give consideration as to whether it will be a one-off agenda item. We will try to accommodate as many witnesses as we possibly can on that day, but that has to be logistically. We need to look into that. The fifth point is that we also invite the European Commission. I said that we would invite the cabinet secretary for an update. We write to the cabinet secretary and ask for an update. That means that the cabinet secretary comes here to give the update, rather than a correspondence.